Unlike many internet armchair physicists.....I don't even pretend to be able fathom why the fark the particle is so important, let alone what it is. I just like it because ignorant Christian "scientists" get their panties in a bunch over it.

If the HB gets to be called the "god particle," does a second one mean we're only one short of a trinity? Or if there are just the two, is that Quantum Gnosticism? Or are we heading toward a full polytheistic pantheon?

It could, of course, be a statistical blip that disappears as more data is collected - the next big data release from CERN is scheduled for March - or, as particle physicist Adam Falkowski blogs, it could result from a "systematic error" (he humourously posits "alcohol abuse" as a possibility).

ltdanman44:I have no idea what I am seeing here. Can someone translate please

imagine this plot as a venn diagram... The crosses are the most probable values extracted from the data analysis. The analysis was done separately in two decay channels (gamma-gamma and 4 leptons). The black cross is the best estimate mass vs signal strength for both channels added together.But looking at the two decay modes separately, the mass is different by ~2 GeV.

the lines are confidence contours. the solid lines are "1-sigma" - i.e. one standard deviation if you want to think of this as a Gaussian (normal) distribution.

The difference between the two masses (blue and red crosses) is a ~2.5 sigma effect, which makes it intriguing - but it's not discovery-level just yet...

Citrate1007:Unlike many internet armchair physicists.....I don't even pretend to be able fathom why the fark the particle is so important, let alone what it is. I just like it because ignorant Christian "scientists" get their panties in a bunch over it.

The best way I've had it explained to me-(NOTE: I AM NOT A HIGH ENERGY OR PARTICLE OR THEORETICAL PHYSICIST. I'm a Nano-physicist. THIS IS NOT MY FIELD. I also don't *quite* have my PhD yet.)

According to some theory whose name I don't remember, The Higgs Boson gives rise to the Higgs Field, which is, in turn, what causes *EVERYTHING* to have mass.

Like... picture a big, vast field of wet snow, with various objects being pushed/moving through it. Some objects will slide through the snow 'faster' than others (due to how they're shaped, or what they're made of, etc; The inherent properties of the object.). As in our world, some particles have more or less mass based on how they interact with the Higgs field.

But pretend that the snow is EVERYWHERE. You've never seen anywhere that's *not* snow, and since it's wet it all sticks together and it's hard to see what the snow is *made* of.

So you throw dynamite in it to try and blow up chunks into the air, so you can watch how they fall/etc. That's (SORT OF) what the LHC is doing. We've 'seen' a snowflake, in a sense: The particle that gives rise to the whole field which makes things have mass.

Does this have practical applications now? Probably not. But Electricity and Magnetism used to just be scientific curiosities, as well. So who knows how this will be used in the future? Maybe we'll find ways to 'insulate' things from the field.

(If I am wrong, someone PLEASE call me out and correct me! This was just my best understanding of it.)

We already have plenty built in.You see, the way real science works, every scientist is a denier until you produce repeatable, demonstrable, RESULTS.Something that holds up to scientific scrutiny and skepticism.Predictions? Not at all part of real science no matter what lipstick you put on it.

ltdanman44:I have no idea what I am seeing here. Can someone translate please?

I'm not a particle physicist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night...

The Higgs Boson was predicted by the standard model to exist between 125 and 127 Giga Electron Volts (GeV). Unexpectedly, there appear to be two particles that fit the range, and that's what you're seeing in the graph. One (blue in the graph) centers around 123.5 GeV, and the other (red) at 126.5 GeV.

What they don't explain very well is that this is fairly preliminary data, and we'll most likely discover an anomaly that explains why we're seeing multiple particles that are so close in mass; the math allows for multiple Higgs particles, but the closeness in mass is unexpected and not as easy to explain.

Then again, we may find that these results are reproducible and consistent, and that there's something wrong with the standard model of particle physics. If this turns out to be the case, it has the potential for removing some of the restrictions of our current understanding of physics (faster than light travel, anyone?) and a massive rewrite of theoretical physics.

The theory is that the Higgs particle gives things mass. If (big if) we can learn to manipulate the Higgs then we might be able to manipulate the mass of objects.e.g. Need to move something? Get Higgs cancelers and move whatever you want easily. Need that oil tanker out of the gulf before it spills everything? Use your Higgs cancelers and away it goes, off to dry dock for repair and crude oil transfer.

I just had a thought occur to me. Creating Higgs Boson particles is probably kind of like sending a warp-infinity telegram out to the geek who built the universe as a science project. He's been off doing other stuff but once we create these critters, he hears a "You've Got Mail!" ding, says, "Hmm" to himself, opens it up, and his eyes light up. "Joy!" Then he hits Forward:

Unlike many internet armchair physicists.....I don't even pretend to be able fathom why the fark the particle is so important, let alone what it is. I just like it because ignorant Christian "scientists" get their panties in a bunch over it.

In short it proves the standard model, which well all take for granted as true, to be true. It is a particle essential to how things acquire mass (other than potato chips), proves that electromagnetism and the weak force are different manifestations of the same force, etc. It's like being excited about quantum physics discoveries. We can't really know that research into this is going to give us things like transistors to GPS in 50 years but it's supposed to be that important.

The graphic is just what it says below the picture, a representation of the Higgs Boson unit of mass in giga-electron volts. It's important because it falls into the range that they predicted the particle would be if it exists.

I am not smart enough to understand it all either but it's really cool. I don't think it'll give us teleportation or anything but it will go a ways in understanding how gravity works, I think. I dunno, just neat to watch.

Frogfoot:The theory is that the Higgs particle gives things mass. If (big if) we can learn to manipulate the Higgs then we might be able to manipulate the mass of objects.e.g. Need to move something? Get Higgs cancelers and move whatever you want easily. Need that oil tanker out of the gulf before it spills everything? Use your Higgs cancelers and away it goes, off to dry dock for repair and crude oil transfer.